1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to food containers, and particularly to a hot beverage cup sleeve that allows a person to hold the cup without burning one's fingers while retaining heat in the cup for preventing the beverage from cooling too quickly.
2. Description of the Related Art
Coffee shop franchises nowadays serve hot beverages in disposable cups made from inexpensive and biodegradable materials. In order to make these cups safe for a person or customer to handle, different types of cup sleeves have been utilized. Many such sleeves are also made of recyclable materials. Of course, the ideal cup and sleeve would protect the person's hand from excessive heat while keeping the beverage hot for an extended period of time.
To protect the person's hand, the current hot beverage sleeves available on the market utilize the science of heat transfer. One type of hot beverage sleeve uses a double-layering practice for the sleeve to increase the level of thermal insulation. The other type of hot beverage sleeve uses corrugated paperboard or cardboard material to create air spaces around the cup to provide a certain degree of insulation of the heat.
From a heat transfer point of view, these insulation sleeves are based on physical laws of heat conduction, only. As is commonly known, heat can be transferred by conduction, convection, or radiation. Currently, the available hot beverage sleeves utilize heat conduction by isolating the heat. The heat is then directed either up or down the sleeve, with the sleeve heating up and the beverage cooling down, thus, making the sleeve hot to touch or the hot beverage cold to drink.
Thus, a hot beverage cup sleeve solving the aforementioned problems is desired.